James E. Blake was born in 1922 in Ohio. He was employed in the building of aircraft before enlisting in the service on June 28, 1941. He served in the 787th Bombardment Squadron, 466th Bombardment Group, Heavy, as a Second Lieutenant and Navigator of B-24H #41-29354 during World War II.

On February 14, 1944, B-24H Liberator #41-29354 was lost at sea while ferrying a new aircraft from the United States to Dakar, Senegal, as part of the 466th Bombardment Group's deployment to the European Theater of Operations. Approximately 100 miles off the U.S. coast, the crew transmitted a distress message reporting serious engine trouble and indicating that they were abandoning the aircraft and taking to life rafts. Some accounts suggest that the aircraft may have run out of fuel, although the exact cause of the incident remains uncertain. Despite the distress call, neither the aircraft nor its crew was ever recovered. All crew members were subsequently declared Killed in Action.

2Lt Blake was declared Missing in Action, and his name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial, Carthage, Délégation de Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia.

Sources of information: www.findagrave.com, americanarchive.iwm.org.uk, weremember.abmc.gov